


Becoming

by FloraOne



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst, F/M, His life leading up to the scene we first meet him in, Mamoru Chiba Week Drabble Challenge, before canon, little orphan mamoru, lots and lots of angst, written for Mamoru Chiba Week on tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-11
Updated: 2017-08-11
Packaged: 2018-12-14 01:16:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11772438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FloraOne/pseuds/FloraOne
Summary: This is a tiny little seven- part drabble series, written for the Mamoru Chiba Week 2017 Drabble Challenge over on tumblr. In it, I'm taking you a little bit through time with this series. How did Mamoru become the person he is until we meet him? What were his struggles, what were his motivations? Takes place before we meet him in (any!) canon, and follows him on his path.





	1. Orphan

**Author's Note:**

> This is a tiny little seven- part drabble series, written for the Mamoru Chiba Week 2007 Drabble Challenge over on tumblr 
> 
> I’m taking you a little bit through time with this series. How did Mamoru become the person he is until we meet him? What were his struggles, what were his motivations?
> 
> Mixing canons as I go, as I always tend to do ;)
> 
> And here’s the disclaimer, where I vow not to try and make money out of characters and things that aren’t mine ;)

1

Orphan

 

„Don’t you want to go and touch the rabbit, Mamoru?“

 

The caretaker on shift that day was a pretty and chubby, auburn-haired woman, face young, smile open and tentative, as she leaned her soft face down and right into his vision.

 

She was one of the new ones – she still tried to get him out of his shell, unlike the others.

 

Yet Mamoru crossed his arms more tightly across his chest, and leaned a little away from her.

 

She sighed, straightened her back, and shrugged, a little helplessly. “Well, it’s going be here for a while… you can go play with it whenever you want,” she said, a hopeful expression lighting her smooth and creamy face, as she turned around and went to assist the other kids with the fragile little animal.

 

He was eight, one of the bigger kids in the orphanage… Not that he remembered ever having been a young kid, here. When he was first brought to this institution, at six, he had already been amongst the oldest.

 

Most kids were transferred to foster homes within the first three or four years of their lives. Families somehow didn’t want kids that were older, or at least not the ones who came here. And those that did take them in didn’t choose ones that never smiled…

 

So, he was one of the big kids. He and a smattering of older boys whom he didn’t get along with – they were mean, and spiteful, and they kicked and bit and stole, and whenever he got too close to them he could feel all that sadness and hurt and anger that made his throat close up, so he didn’t go.

 

One of them had beaten him once – saying how lucky he was to have parents who were dead instead of parents who were drunk. Another had tried to make friends with him once – his parents were gone, too, died in an accident similar to his, and the boy had hoped to have someone his age to cry and grieve with… just that Mamoru had no grief, not really, not like that. He didn’t have the memory of anyone to grieve over…

 

And so his chance at a friend had gone, in a flurry of bewilderment and refusal.

 

He’d learned his place, quickly. Out there, people didn’t trust orphans… didn’t treat them nicely. So he was silent. In here… people didn’t trust orphans that didn’t cry. And so he kept away.

 

He did cry, but not for his parents, just for the loneliness. But he never could when someone else was there for it.

 

One of the caretakers had read a story to them once. Of a little turtle that retracted into his shell whenever things got too much, when the little turtle got too sad or angry. And in his shell he’d been protected, safe. He remembered how he envied that little turtle… to have somewhere to go to, when all the feeling got too much.

 

But mostly it felt so numb. There was so much emotion, here, around him. The other kids couldn’t hold these emotions in like he did. So he felt them all the time. Always… So much anger, and regret. The kind of feelings he barely felt in the grown-ups.

 

Everyone here was grieving.

 

Everyone, it seemed to them, but him. The strange, blank, grumpy little boy that people tended to keep away from. Even most of the caretakers. They liked the kids they could cheer up… Or at least the kids that kicked and screamed.

 

Nobody knew what to do with him.

 

He stayed sitting on the bench off the side of the common room, watching the chubby, auburn haired woman with the open smile turn her smile towards children who returned it. She laughed, as one of the younger kids – Mia, who was three, turned big blue mesmerized eyes up at her and started gushing about how soft the rabbit’s fur was.

 

Button. That was the name they’d given the rabbit, collectively. It had been a lively discussion between the kids in which he hadn’t participated. It had been a gift from the local animal shelter, and had moved into the common room two nights prior.

 

Button was small – tiny, in fact –, white, and impossibly fluffy. The most adorable thing he’d ever seen in his life, and he yearned, so badly that his chest ached, to go and touch it, but he didn’t.

 

His throat had constricted the first time he’d seen it. He’d been there when the man in the green overall had arrived with it, while all the other kids had been out in the playgrounds while he’d sat in the common room on his own and read. The man had held Button out to him, had allowed him to be the first to hold him.

 

But when Mamoru reached out his hands for it, something almost like a smile ghosting across his lips in anticipation, he’d felt how frightened tiny little Button was, how it shivered and trembled.

 

He’d retracted his hands as if he’d been burned, before he’d ever touched its shiny fur, and vowed to never, ever touch it, however much he wanted to.

 

He couldn’t let his sadness touch something so pure.


	2. Heal

**2**

**Heal**

 

Mamoru didn’t like pain. He neither liked being in it, nor did he like feeling it in others. It was blinding, tempting him to scream when he was so very scared to let go of his silence.

 

It was worst when people felt it that he liked.

 

There had been a sweet little girl, two years old, once, who had fallen from the swing in the backyard and hurt her leg so bad it had broken. Her pain had felt so intense he felt it even though he wasn’t very near to her. Even months later, he had still dreamt of the screams and her pain, and the helplessness he had felt.

 

The first times it had happened, he reconstructed later, he hadn’t even noticed it.

 

Mamoru wasn’t very prone to accidents. Not like the other kids. He didn’t go to play grounds, he didn’t get in fights, he didn’t climb things he wasn’t supposed to, and he was very good at sports, athletic and agile – so nothing really ever happened to him, there, either.

 

He remembered that first, particular incident – he’d just turned ten, and a few caretakers had taken all the few older kids to a theme park in Asakusa – he had been the only one not to be excited. He didn’t want to go on the roller coaster in the first place, and was sulking all the while as they stood in line, but not going would have meant someone had to wait around with him, so…

 

He went. The line went around the corner, and the boys next to him were getting giddy and playful, shoving each other. That’s when one of the boys fell into him and he stumbled.

 

He fell on his wrist at an unfortunate angle. The pain that shot through him was excruciating, and he remembered vividly how hot and embarrassing the tears felt that came to him, unwillingly, in front of all of them.

 

Mamoru had gotten his wish then, obviously. He didn’t have to go on the roller coaster anymore.

 

One of the caretakers left with him, a lanky, friendly man, and wrapped his scarf around his wrist and shoulder to hold it in place, scolding Mamoru when he attempted to touch it to feel how much it hurt, and went with him to the little doctor’s office that was right on site, near the entrance.

 

The doctor was a nice middle aged lady with a quick grin and a single crooked tooth that somehow made her face even prettier. She patted his cheek, saying ‘there, there’ and ‘just let it out, a good cry is a healthy thing, darling’ to him as he sniffled and hiccupped.

 

Her soothing voice and nonsense distracted him as she prodded and bent his wrist this way and that, and she dressed it tightly, as he pressed his teeth together against the pain.

 

She couldn’t tell for sure if it was fractured or not, they didn’t have the equipment here, so his caretaker had to take him all the way to the ER. A taxi was already waiting outside.

 

Seated in the back on his own, he inhaled around the pain, and cradled his wrist to his chest with his good hand.

 

Almost like a prayer he wished this awful, awful pain to go away…

 

And then it did.

 

The doctor in the hospital had found nothing wrong with his wrist. Telling him to be a little stronger when it hurt next time, to not scare the caretakers so. He was a boy, he shouldn’t cry at every little scratch.

 

He’d glared at that doctor and said nothing. You try not crying when it hurt so much. He’d liked the lady doctor better.

 

They’d gone back and he’d been alone in the room for the older boys, as they were all still in Asakusa, and he remembered the crooked tooth and the warm hand at his cheek, and wondered for a second if maybe his mother had felt a little like that, too.

 

The next time it had happened, he had cut himself, same hand, only a few weeks later.

 

Every Friday one of the caretakers brought them into the large, industrial kitchen, and their cook – a bald, fat and friendly man – showed them how to prepare a good meal. ‘You need to be able to feed yourself, boys, when you’re on your own,’ he’d always said in his huffy, low voice, that always seemed a little agitated.

 

That day they were helping the cook to prepare a curry for the whole orphanage– one of the simplest dishes they tended to make, but he wasn’t very good at that one.

 

The cut was relatively deep, and Mamoru was immediately mesmerized by the color and thickness of the blood that bubbled and gushed from it, before he ever felt the pain.

 

He didn’t cry this time, remembering the rude doctor from the ER, and instead bit the inside of his cheek, as the cook cleaned his wound under the spray of cold water, and he was sent to go to their nurse, only a few doors down the hall, a clean kitchen towel wrapped around his hand, white turning crimson.

 

Before he raised his other, uninjured hand to knock, he stilled. Remembering how he’d managed to get rid of the pain, before.

 

He stripped the now red towel slowly from around his hands. Once, twice, thrice, and it was gone, and he looked at the wet, open cut. Two, neatly sliced and almost translucent, strips of skin, a pool of dark red, almost brown, thick blood.

 

He held his other hand above it, just like the other day, and sent the same prayer to who knows where – to _someone_ – to please make the pain go away.

 

He could watch, with held breath, as the gold glimmer closed the wound up before his eyes. Like an invisible zipper through his skin that sealed the blood back inside.

 

He’d shrieked, and dropped the bloody towel in fright. He ran and hid, as fast as he could, as the nurse’s door opened in investigation of the noises he had made.

 

He’d dug out the old and washed dressings from his wrist that were tucked in his little box of belongings under his bed, the one that really didn’t contain much beside his locket, and pretended to have a healing wound for weeks – lest anyone asked how his cut was doing. But nobody had asked. He learned that he could hide this even without pretense.

 

People didn’t look too closely when you were silent and kept to yourself.

 

Which is why he got bolder with it, as time passed. And the next time one of the smaller kids fell and hurt themselves – those that couldn’t really understand what was happening and thus wouldn’t expose him – he was brave enough to go and help them up, and heal them as they were too surprised to notice.

 

It was there that he vowed, at ten years old, that he would find a way to be allowed to heal everyone who hurt.


	3. Memory

**3**

**Memory**

 

Mamoru  didn’t know when the dreams had started. Somehow he felt they’d always been there.

 

Whenever he tried, so very, very hard, to remember… anything, really, from before the accident, it was her face that popped up in his mind.

 

And later, when he slept, the dreams would become more vivid.

 

It hurt to look at her, sometimes. She was simultaneously the single most beautiful and saddest thing he could imagine in the universe. And he couldn’t help but feel the guilt, for her as well… the guilt he felt for his parents. That he’d forgotten them.

 

He’d forgotten her, too. He knew she was important…

 

He would never ever tell a soul, surely there was something seriously wrong with him… but she had slowly become his best friend. His turtle shell to return to when things got too much – whenever things got tough, he’d try to think of her face as comfort. When it got unbearing, he went to sleep, in hopes of finding her.

 

And then there were the times he got angry at her – at her sadness, at her pleading, wordless voice, that she was there in the first place… he had enough grief in his world, surely he didn’t need someone else’s?

 

At age 12, he noticed another feeling towards her… one that scared him most of all, and he started to work out before bed … so that he would sleep tighter, dreamless.

 

It was one thing to consider the girl in your dreams your friend… it was another to feel that ache in his mouth and in places he didn’t want to name when thinking of her, waking from her…

 

At age 13, they had been sent on an excursion  – one caretaker, he, and the other five remaining, lanky, pimply teenagers that were no longer paraded in front of potential foster families, and instead were being taught to get by on their own.

 

They’d gone deep into the Kii Mountains, hiking from temple to temple; Buddhist and Shinto alike. The ancient Kumano Kodo pilgrimage trails – to most of the boys it was pure uphill torture, for him it felt like breathing for the first time.

 

Because the route was so exhausting, none of the other boys talked a lot, either. They walked spread apart, through the cedar forests, in their own rhythm, with Mamoru up ahead, only communicating when they stopped for breaks where the mountain scenery was most extraordinary, or when they stopped at a shrine, and even then, they mostly agreed on mute, tired looks, instead.

 

He could breathe here, to the soundtrack of wind-rustled-leaves, the puffy grunt of exhaustion, the crickets which were louder, here, than he’d ever heard before.

 

Their destination was the Three Grand Shrines of Kumano. The reason they’d been sent to walk these quiet paths was to find peace, or content, or something similar, about the life they were about to lead, completely on their own.

 

At their fourteenth birthday, each of them would move out of the orphanage, those last few of them that hadn’t managed to be allocated, to live on their own. He was off best of them, he knew that. His parents had left him in a good financial position, and with an apartment they had rented out and that would be his, in the middle of Tokyo. The other boys weren’t so lucky.

 

He’d made peace with this lonely life. Had found his way in it. So, when they stood in front of the sacred waterfall at Kumano Hiryu Taisha, that was believed to be inhabited by a wise and all-knowing kami, it was something else that he asked for.

 

He didn’t ask for a family. He asked for her.

 

_Who is she?_

_What does she want me to do?_

 

The kami didn’t answer, of course. And none of the other boys listened to the one among them, telling the kami had promised him that he’d marry a supermodel  in two years, so he could just go and move in with her now, instead of on his own?

 

The kami hadn’t answered, but when he’d fallen asleep that night, snuggled tightly into the thin sheet on the thin futon of the shrine they stayed at that night, with the moon shining brightly through the gap in the sliding paper doors… Someone else had answered.

 

“ _The Silver Crystal. You need to find the Silver Crystal_.”

 

It had been the first words she’d ever spoken clear enough to understand, and they burnt into his soul. More like a memory, than a dream.

 

They’d sent him to find peace. He felt he’d found a purpose, instead.


	4. Green Jacket

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While I do realize 14 is a bit early for moving out of state care for an orphaned child, I’m going with Sailor Moon universe logic here. After all, Makoto lives on her own as well. So, I’m incorporating that.

**4**

**Green Jacket**

 

 

While the other leftover teenage boys that were hoarded off into adulthood at age fourteen were mostly unhappy about the change, from what he’d heard and seen, to him it felt like freedom.

 

It was lonely, yes. But so had been the orphanage.

 

At least, here, he wasn’t constantly reminded of his solitude, watching the other kids flock together while he stood to the side, alone.

 

And, here, he didn’t have to pretend.

 

On his own, nobody reacted when he woke screaming from strange dreams of genocides and death in a land that didn’t feel like it could be on this planet. He didn’t have to pretend that nothing was the matter, here.

 

And he didn’t have to _feel_ so much. All this emotion, pressing into him from all these people, and he couldn’t comment, couldn’t soothe, couldn’t help.

 

The caretakers had helped him settle in, take care of the administrative hassles of talking to the previous tenants, and getting him moved into the small property that had belonged to his parents, next to their own house that had been sold quickly after their demise, the money going into funds for his use later in life. They helped him replace a few pieces of outdated furniture – get a new bed, a bigger desk to fit a hard-working student, downsize the kitchen from a couple’s needs to a single’s needs.

 

And then they were gone, returning once per month in the beginning, once per quarter as he got older but was not yet of legal age to live on his own, to check on him and note his academic progress.

 

There had been nothing to complain about, of course. He’d aced all his classes, gotten accepted to the most prestigious school in the area, Moto Azabu, had chosen a goal to work towards.  His apartment was spotless, his schedule conscientious. Everything in his life was polished, organized, responsible. Adult.

 

But still, they treated him like a child. Detached and judging, they went through his kitchen, commenting on what was in his fridge, jotting down notes on charts. Nodding in approval and on with the show. It was irritating.

 

At sixteen, Mamoru had passed most of puberty. His voice was low and steady again, his last growth spurt had been long since gone, his muscles were becoming more defined, his genitalia didn’t go overly crazy over every dream of her anymore.

 

His face was still young, but he was filling out. He felt comfortable in Moto Azabu’s school uniform – it was sophisticated and elegant, yet, it clearly marked him as a child.

 

So, one day, when necessity and growth had forced him to go shopping for a new set of leisure clothes, green jacket and black turtle neck, although objectively hideous, had called to him.

 

He’d flinched even when trying it on, but as he stood there – mismatched lilac pants from the last outfit he’d tried on, green over black… it had fit. It was the kind of outfit dads wore. It made him look older. It made him look adult. Like a smug, arrogant douche.

 

He was on his own, and he wanted to be seen like that, as well. Independent. Needing no one but himself.

 

He’d bought it without a second thought, and it immediately became his most favorite outfit.


	5. Locket

**5**

**Locket**

 

Mamoru unlocked the door to his clean, spotless, impersonal apartment just as the sun was setting.

 

With a sigh he pushed the bags from his shoulder and onto the counter. One contained his weekly grocery shopping – a small smattering of single-sized cartons of ramen, eggs, crisps, and soup vegetables. Two solitary carrots, two large bottles of water. He didn’t need that much for just himself.

 

The other was filled to the brim, and it was the one he unloaded first.

 

Books. Ten of them. A few of them were heavy tomes, others were smaller. All of them on one topic: Crystals, Gemstones, Mineralogy.

He stacked them neatly, one atop the other, leaving one on his green jacket, folded over one of the stools. The others he brought to his bookcase, on the side of the room, and shelved them alphabetically – among many countless of their kind.

 

His latest purchase spree – as he’d already been through all the ones readily available at the local libraries.

 

But today, he reasoned, glancing up toward the calendar on the side of his kitchen wall, over the counter… if he couldn’t get away with spending lots of money on books that might not at all be helpful on this of all days, then he didn’t know when he could…

 

August 3rd.

 

He sighed, softly, and went back to the counter to unpack his solitary groceries. Eggs and vegetables in the fridge, instant ramen in the cupboards. It was done in mere moments, the clanging of the fridge door resonating loudly in the always eerily quiet apartment.

 

He pushed the button of his coffee machine, flinching at the gurgling, loud sound it made when coming alive, and leaned against the counter, waiting for it to heat up, as he absentmindedly ripped the paper announcing the date from the calendar, crumpling it in his fist.

 

He shook his head, sighing again, deeply, and glanced back toward his overly full bookcase, the top shelf of it filled with crystals – metallic and otherwise. And his locket.

 

It was a trinket he’d always had. It had been the only thing he’d brought with him to the orphanage.

 

There’d been a vast amount of toys in the house of his parents that had been cleared and sold… but the orphanage had asked him to bring only a smattering of his favorite things. Because the other children barely had anything, and it would have been unfair.

 

The only thing he’d brought with him, then, had chosen from that strange place that had supposedly been his home, had been the one thing that had drawn him in, as he toured it for the last (and first) time – this locket. It must have belonged to his mother, or maybe even his father. At least that is what he had told himself, and everyone who had asked, over and over.

 

But after that day in the mountains, where he’d first heard her voice, asking for the silver crystal… he’d known in his heart that this song was connected to _her_. It always just brought her image to his mind, and always had.

 

It had been what he’d listened to, night after night, making the decision to  hunt for his memories. Collect them. Do something about it.

 

Today he turned 17. He’d been looking for that Crystal for almost four years. Not always as aggressively… but he’d never stopped.

 

The more he searched for it, the more intense the dreams became.

 

He’d become an expert on crystals and gems in the years. Had grown his own at school, even – metal crystals might be the most mesmerizing things he’d ever seen, and the process, suspending coiled copper wires in test tubes filled with silver nitrate and mercury, before letting it grow in the dark, wasn’t altogether all that difficult. Silver Crystals – he’d thought it had been a good place to start.

 

It had not brought him anywhere, of course. And so he studied them, went to any exhibition, any crystal meditation course, any university lecture, trying to not stand out as too young as he was, to find out more.

 

He got his to-go cup from his cupboard, placed it under his coffee machine, and pushed the button.

 

There were many so called silver crystals in the world – most of them literal crystals, like his own homemade ones, made from silver; traditionally related to the moon it was used in healing treatments, toxin elimination, and to enhance feminine energy in many folklore treatments – museums were full of them and he’d been to almost all of them. Some legally, some not so.

 

It was a bit disturbing how easily he’d learned how to move on from picking locks – a skill learned very fast from the company he’d had in the orphanage, even without engaging with them on a friendly basis – to full out break ins.

 

But… just museums. And he’d never taken anything. It had never been the right one. And he’d never dared to go farther.

 

He figured he’d know when he’d encounter the right one.

 

And then there were the other kinds of silver crystals – a fancy name for numerous kinds of rare and mind-bogglingly expensive gems and jewelry.

 

He knew he’d be faced with the decision, soon… some of them were here, in local jewelry stores and banks, under lock up in safes, strong rooms, vaults, and security containers.

 

He’d have to work a bit more skills for those, he reckoned…

 

With a beep that wasn’t altogether loud, but still sounded like excessive noise in the quiet apartment, the coffee stopped running.

 

He withdrew the cup, and put the silicone lid on its rim. Then, he donned his jacket – green and hideous, but comforting, and tucked the book he’d left out under his arm.

 

Before opening the door, he conjured up two single roses, one for each of his parents – he was too wary to do it anywhere else than in the safety of his apartment, still scared by his newly discovered ability.

 

Two perfect red roses. From thin air. It still overwhelmed him. Boggled his mind. So, he shook his head, not wanting to think it through, _yet again_.

 

August 3rd. It would take him about half an hour to get to the graveyard.

 


	6. Moonlight

**6**

**Moonlight**

 

It really hadn’t been that conscious of a decision…

 

He’d been reading through the night, frustrated, the site of the advertisement for the chic jeweler in Ginza open on his laptop. Engagement rings from Paris; rose cut, the diamond they were cut from a rare, exclusive and impossibly expensive type nicknamed, “Silver Crystal”.

 

He’d tried to get at it. Mimed the love-sick boy looking for a ring for his girlfriend. Worn his tuxedo and all, like a fool. But he was still a kid, however much he tried to seem otherwise, and the woman in the shop had simply raised an eyebrow, suppressing a snort, and asked his age, when he had inquired after the Silver Crystal.

 

He’d tried four times. They were wary of him, now, searching each other’s eye as he entered the shop.

 

And he really didn’t know what would have happened if they _had_ shown him the ring, and it _had_ felt right. His parents had left him with a sum of money, to get him through college comfortably, plus the money that came from selling their house, back then, but… even he didn’t have millions of yen just to spend, let alone _billions_ for a ring this rare.

 

No, it really hadn’t been a conscious decision. It had been a line he had never meant to cross. But with eyes heavy from fatigue he’d donned his Tuxedo, again, and reached for the mask he’d bought on a whim.

 

He felt like a sleepwalker. His mind too tired to overthink, acting on this strange, reckless auto-pilot that was his sleep-deprived mind, keeping to the shadows in the cover of night.

 

It had been way too easy. And it hadn’t been the right one, of course.

 

The next time had been a scheduled auction. A necklace this time, a blue-ish, silver diamond, crystal shaped, weighing 8.01 carats, previously owned by a late European duchess. Pre-sale estimates were so high his stomach had dropped, and he’d seen no other choice but a repeat performance.

 

He’d have loved to pretend it had been a spontaneous, sleep deprived decision, again, but this time he had planned. Scouted the area, looked for weak spots. Bought a top hat as to be further unrecognizable by any cameras he’d overlooked.

 

It was so easy, again, it made him uncomfortable. As if crime was his true talent. It made him feel uneasy.

 

He’d spent his life trying to disprove the offending notion by society, that an orphan was oftentimes bound to be delinquent. That a boy would turn into a criminal without parents. To prove the hurtful stereotype, when all he wanted to be was a doctor, was a pit in his stomach that wouldn’t close back up.

 

The tuxedo helped, of sorts. Gentleman thief, a phantom. A cavalier among criminals. And that he never really ended up stealing, anyway. It weren’t the right ones. And somehow, deep down, he was glad when the objects in question never turned out to be _right_.

 

He didn’t fool himself, though. He knew his intent. He was out to steal, after all, and there was this nagging thought. What if he’d already found it? What if he’d simply overlooked, if it didn’t speak to him like he assumed it would, when he found it?

 

It made his breath catch and his heart stutter, and he was tempted to go back to every single place he’d ever found a silver crystal and steal them all.

 

And then there was this nagging feeling. How right the tuxedo felt. How it fit the healing, the roses, the empathy.

 

The feeling of strength forming in his limbs, more and more, every time he donned it.

 

It had been the third time, when it happened. A ring, again, this time. A black opal, with a silver shine, again, going by the name of, “Silver Crystal”. It had not been the right one, either, needless to say.

 

The housing jewelry, this time around, had been a little ways out of Tokyo, in Chiba, and somehow he had felt it fitting.

 

This time, he had felt the power in him surge. He didn’t need to dress in his Tuxedo, this time. It appeared, transforming onto his skin, this gentleman thief outfit he had chosen for himself.

 

His Tuxedo now sported accessories that hadn’t been on it before, as well as a thick, black and red-lined cape – the fabric feeling oddly familiar against his fingers. And the power he’d felt bubbling was unmistakable now.

 

His jumps felt a little like flying, now.

 

He’d been so shocked, he had messed up, but as he dove away from the sirens, his entrance discovered this time, his body had felt the strength of ten, his senses had heightened, and he felt… everything. Everything around him. Living, breathing. He felt it all, under the tips of his fingers and the balls of his feet.

 

It felt exhilarating, free… leaping from rooftop to rooftop, connected to this world, only followed by the moonlight.


	7. Odango

**7**

**Odango**

 

To say that Mamoru was agitated was an understatement.

 

There had been break-ins and robberies in jewelries all across the city for several weeks – not of his doing, obviously, as he never ended up stealing – the Silver Crystal was never there, after all. But, from those few times that he had been too careless, and pictures of him – or, rather, glimpses of him, since he kept his face turned down, the top hat shrouding it in shadow, unidentifiable – breaking and entering into the very places of question, had turned up in the media. Thus, obviously he was the prime suspect.

 

The thought made him furious… Of course he didn’t show it, though.

 

Sometimes he thought his face was the mask, not the white accessory that he used to cover his eyes.

 

Yet, besides the defamation by the media, it was something else that bothered him most about the situation… Whoever was doing this… what if they found it? What if they had it, now?

 

It made him restless, the thought was disturbing. He didn’t know to what length he’d have to go if it were true. He didn’t want to know what else he was capable of.

 

So, he became obsessed. Even more so than before. He needed to be quicker than whoever was doing these robberies.

 

Thus, he dropped every last extracurricular course, and after school he’d go scouting the shops, search for its weak points, only to come back in the cover of night and moonlight.

 

This was exactly how he found himself in front of Osa-P, in the middle of day. Like today, he still sometimes went the tuxedo route, going inside and asking around, trying to seem older and more respectable in order to be taken seriously, to be led to the truly exclusive sections. It rarely ever worked, but it still seemed worth a try.

 

This one, though, today, didn’t seem very exclusive in itself.

 

A slender woman with a short, auburn bob stood in the middle of the store, announcing over and over in a loud, booming voice what was written all across the store. Clearance sale. 95% off.

 

The woman herself, to him, felt off. There was something strange about her, something malicious that he’d never felt in a person before. It made him, for a moment, wary to go in.

 

It happened unconsciously, while recoiling away from the darkest of feelings he’d ever felt in any person, that his body turned away, towards the purest feelings he felt in the near vicinity, and found himself, maybe too closely altogether, behind a blonde girl with a peculiar hairstyle in a school uniform.

 

He swallowed, about to step back in embarrassment – this didn’t usually happen to him, just as she crumpled a paper rigorously, throwing it behind herself blindly – it landed – how could it be otherwise, with him standing right behind her – directly in his face.

 

“Oi, that hurt, bump head. Are you trying to make my head look like yours?” he said, as he held out his hands to catch the offending piece of paper.

 

“Bumps?! These aren’t bumps, baka, they’re Odango – hair buns.”

 

Her voice was young, childish, loud, but he paid her no mind at all, and instead unfolded what he quickly discovered to be a test paper in deft movements. Class 2. Tsukino Usagi. Thirty percent, underlined and red.

 

He raised an eyebrow. He really couldn’t remember ever having seen a grade that bad, for anyone. And in a subject as easy as English, too!

 

“Thirty percent. You need to study more, Odango Atama.”

 

He knew it was rude, talking to a stranger like that, but, to be honest, it felt nice to be talking to someone so carelessly. He didn’t remember the last time he did, without guard. So, he shrugged and cheekily lowered the paper towards her head.

 

She gripped it with the smallest hands he’d ever seen on a girl, and angrily ripped it away.

 

She was saying something. He knew she was… but…

 

Those eyes. The hair… soft lips, translucent skin… _those_ _eyes_.

 

 _Princess…_ his mind whispered to him, and his heart might have skipped a beat in shock.

 

She stopped. And so did he.

 

His stomach dropped, and he knew, for once, he had no control of his facial muscles. His expression must have slipped, and really, it was no surprise to him.

 

It was impossible, a trick of his mind, he knew it. But she looked just like her. As if he recognized her. As if he forgot her, from somewhere way back…

 

His hand twitched, as if trying to reach out, and he could do nothing but stand rooted on the spot, willing his hand to stay put as he helplessly stared into blue eyes.

 

Blue eyes that were staring right back at him.

 

He felt it, then. The heavy hammering of her heart, the flush of flight.

 

She retreated, immediately. Away from him, quickly. So quickly that she forgot her bag, and had to inch back, tentatively, to reach for it. All the way, never breaking his gaze – like prey wary of its predator.

 

She couldn’t seem to get away fast enough, hurrying along the red cobbles of Juuban with her book-bag clutched protectively against her chest.

 

He could only stare after her, for a moment. Paralyzed. Rooted.

 

The lump lodged in his throat only became thicker.

 

Tsukino Usagi.

 

How very fitting. Another trembling, frightened rabbit, so impossibly adorable that his chest ached, that he yearned to touch but never would.

 

He swallowed, thickly, regaining control of his facial features and turned back toward Osa-P, shaking his thoughts away. There were other, pressing matters at hand, than what could never be.


End file.
